Company Data API: Use Cases
Our last article about API, we finished with words:
Being a leader is not easy.
You have to stay ahead of the game, innovate and grasp opportunities. If there is a secret to success, it is the ability to see opportunities.
Discover the opportunities offered by an API.
To continue this topic, in today’s article, we’re going to “show” you the opportunities offered by an API on concrete examples of use.
The most spectacular API use case in recent years
The tremendous value brought to business through access to data and technology is undeniable. One of the most spectacular cases in recent years where this influence was extremely evident is the story of the British government saving £ 4 million in 15 minutes.
This event took place when the CTO of the UK government Liam Maxwell decided to run last minute checks on different governmental agencies just before signing off a purchase deal for some costly external reports. The checks were run via an online real-time platform of an external tech company and clearly indicated that all the necessary information was already within the organization although fragmented across different divisions and agencies.
This is a story from the government not from a business, but the same rule applies to private companies. Notoriously, it happens that within one organization, departments have separate systems and separate databases, and in the end, the company loses its integration.
Of course, the best question asked after this API use case is: if the UK government saved £ 4 million in 15 minutes, how much my company can save?
Company Data API use cases
All the use cases below come from our RegTech solutions.
Company Data API use case 1
Onboarding automation
Before: A digital bank operating in the CEE region provides business accounts for SMEs. The bank uses an online onboarding portal where companies would fill out an online application form. Before an account can be opened r every customer has to complete 27 fields of the registration form and wait 48h for manual verification of the input by the bank. Often, some of the fields contained errors and typos.
After: Once we’ve integrated our API data solution to the bank’s system customers only need to fill out two fields: the company name and the registration number. The rest is auto-filled in the background in real time by Transparent Data. This brings three major benefits to the bank like lower cost thanks to automation of manual work, lower risk thanks to real-time verification of the data against a reliable data source and much-improved UX for the clients and hence significantly higher conversion to a customer.
Benefits for the entrepreneur:
- The registration process takes an average of 20 seconds. Increased customer satisfaction with the use of the product
- 48% higher conversion for registration
- 0 errors in the database.
Company Data use case 2
Automatic verification of the business risk
Before: Company X had good sales results but 21% of its sales invoices ended up with a debt collector. After an internal audit, X came to the conclusion that most of these matters can be easily avoided in the early stages using their own business risk analysis. On the one hand, however, more human resources were needed, and on the other business information (including whether the company was on the public debt exchange, owed tax to the Tax Office, or the number of changes in the management in the past year and lastly whether there were any other companies registered at the same address).
After: Due to the fact that sales representatives were opening hundreds of new accounts every month, X decided to fully automate the verification process with our API. Now the selected company data automatically goes to the risk assessment algorithm that the company has developed, complementing and updating already existing company data. Thanks to this solutions sales reps can run early checks on companies by typing the business name into the CRM system to see potential “red flags” that can affect customers’ solvency. Based on this information, they either change the terms of the contract, request upfront payments or kill the prospect altogether.
Benefits for the entrepreneur:
- reduction of the number of contracts going to debt collection up to 8%
- due to data integration, both the sales and accounting departments have the same information in their separate systems.
Company Data use case 3
Product improvement
Before: The basic product of our client were reports with information on the indebtedness of companies. In order to increase the value of these reports and stand out from the competition, our client decided to make the reports more attractive by enriching them with current and historical registry data.
After: Our API automatically completes the relevant fields in customer reports so that the entire product is much more comprehensive and consistent. This allowed our client to quit price wars with competition and position themselves as the only company in their field that sells complete and accurate information on companies.
Benefits for the entrepreneur:
- 112% increase of subscriptions sold on its own platform
- increasing customer satisfaction
- NPS ratio at level 8 compared to the result of 6 from the previous year
How to use Company Data API in your business?
When you start to walk the API path, determining what type of API is most needed for your company is not easy. Especially that APIs are like boxes of chocolate — you can easily change the data coverage and the output.
That’s why just identify your business problems.
Maybe the sales department and compliance department have the same data but because of using different systems, these data are partly incomplete, partially contaminated and partly out of date? Or perhaps what you need is the most up-to-date ERP data from the Corporate Register and original documents with the possibility of downloading them, because your staff is unnecessarily losing time by switching over a dozen registers every day in an inefficient and unsustainable way?
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